Regarding the Uninvited Guests in the AM Open Qualifiers.
The first American Open qualifier saw European club ProDota Gaming win it all. The second had nine EU teams in the round of 16; and by semifinals all American squads were eliminated. It was clear that none of the AM teams were up for the challenge; but was this unforeseen European incursion good for the overall scene?
The Good:
Let’s just address it right away — AM tier 3 teams are awful. Like really, really bad. Valve couldn’t find 8 proper teams to invite for the AM regional qualifier. A rusty lineup of three casters & two pros (VEC) made it to the finals of the first qualifier. As much as this was an accomplishment on Veggies’ part, it was also a solemn reminder of the terrible shape the scene is in. ProDota Gaming chopped them up in straight sets to take the first regional berth.
What ProDota did in the first qualifier established a hasty meritocracy in the second one. If you weren’t good enough to beat the teams playing at a ping disadvantage from outside your region, you didn’t deserve to go further. The better teams moved on to the regionals on the sole basis of their ability, and in this case they were both European. There was little doubt that the EU Tier 3 scene was superior before, and the past few days should have silenced even the worst detractors.
The 2014–2015 season of the NBA begs a mention amidst all of this. That year, three Eastern conference teams made it to the playoffs with a record worse than the last team to make the playoffs from the Western conference. Why? The number of playoffs spots from each conference is fixed (8) — better teams from the west missed out on a playoff berth because of this structure. If the playoff scheme simply promoted the 16 teams with the best record in the league, the post-season that year would’ve been fairer, more competitive & more entertaining. Most of all, such a system would’ve rewarded teams for putting in the hard work and grinding out wins in a long 82 game season. Instead, it rewarded those three teams for playing in a weaker conference.
“There’s a clear imbalance between the Europe and CIS region and the Americas one. We have too many teams in one region and not enough to fill the other. Yet, they get the same number of spots every time. We have decided to take our chances in the Americas open qualifiers. ‘Open’ means ‘open’ and nowhere is it clearly specified that changing regions is against the rules.”
The European teams in this drawn out analogy are playing in the Western conference. Except, the free-for-all nature of the open qualifiers has given two of them a real shot at punching a ticket to the playoffs by somehow competing in the conference across the pond. What’s more surprising is that it took European teams more than a year to really catch on to this possibility — Valve has hosted open qualifiers for their events since TI5. The Oklahoma City Thunder sure would’ve loved to have this neat luxury in 2015.
Gravy. These circumstances are straight gravy for the viewer at home. The competition in the AM regionals is now decidedly spicier — American teams from OQ were never going to make even a small dent given how they crumbled versus actual competition. Before, realistically, it was going to be a three-way tussle between FDL, Team NP & Complexity Gaming to decide AM representatives for Boston. Maybe Infamous had an outside shot. It doesn’t matter anymore.
The dynamic of the AM regionals has gone a bit haywire at this point. Complexity & FDL have not faced foreign competition since the roster lock and neither have any of the teams invited from the South Americas. Previously, these teams would’ve had a certain degree of familiarity with the OQ teams from scrims, pubs or being ex-teammates with them, providing a slight edge. The EU squads will bring different picks, unfamiliar map movements and their own meta to the qualifiers; that’s bound to scratch some heads and ruffle some feathers.
If the possibility of some amazing, chaotic DotA games wasn’t enticing enough for you to tune in, there is serious pride at the stake in these qualifiers. The American squads will be understandably unhappy about the existing narrative of their region’s qualifiers being the “easy way out” and come out guns blazing. Expect the previous favorites to have strong showings, especially against the outsiders. There is a point to be proved and there are doubters to be gagged. For NA DotA in particular, the monkey has never come this close to coming off their backs.. or it being stuck there forever.
The Bad:
Okay, the party crashers make for some great storytelling and exciting games. But is this development actually better for the AM scene going forward?
The EU teams will force the existing invited AM teams to step up and find their hidden gear. They will be extra motivated to win. This will be light a fire under their asses, sure. But there is a good chance that repeated EU takeovers will only stifle the growth of the already struggling AM scene.
The introduction of open qualifiers by Valve gave every dota player a chance, however big or small, of going to the Majors. AM had an extra charm to its Open Qualifiers because of the weak playing field. Lesser skilled or rag-tag squads who would otherwise lose in the first round in EU or CN regions make it to rounds 3, 4 and get to experience the joys of playing competitive dota and winning together. Some of them go really far in the OQ and realize that they actually have a legitimate shot at being a semi-professional player, and decide to grind their way to relevance.
AM desperately needs an infusion of new talent at this point, and the migration of professional EU teams because of their over-crowded homes will be counter-productive in the long run. Before, the required skill floor was somewhat low and the goal of advancing seemed achievable so aspiring AM teams would try their best; getting stomped mercilessly by skilled EU squads in the first round makes the goal seem unrealistic and the amateurs would probably quit at that point. This sudden rise in skill floor basically negates the intangibles of competition — hard work, intelligent research, leadership and dedication of a 5k MMR stack are of little use against an overwhelmingly better a lineup of five 7k MMR players.
“Sheesh, cut the sentimental crap”.
Alright fine, but what the EU teams are forced into doing is a bit similar to pillaging your rival state’s villages. They will raise the skill floor for the duration of the AM qualifiers and then simply return to their home region once the tournament is over — without contributing to the development of the scene. After the qualifiers conclude, the AM skill floor will just go back to its previous (low) point, maybe improving by a small amount.
One may argue that DC has four EU players and not only are they doing the same thing, AM players actively cheer for the team as one of their own. What Digital Chaos is doing with their team in Americas is not even close the same. Sure they are four Europeans who are playing in a weaker region, but they also participate in NA tournaments where the local teams get multiple opportunities to play against them and learn. They also scrim locally, play in the region’s pubs and In-House Leagues (NEL). These four EU players are actively contributing to the growth of the scene knowingly or unknowingly. They are helping raise the region’s skill floor. At the very least, they are improving the local burger joint’s earnings in Arizona. And given their owner, the Phoenix Suns are also happy with the added revenue.
DotA 2’s sister game has a long term testimonial of DC’s potential influence. The Brazilian counter-strike squad SK Gaming completely revitalized the floundering NA scene when they first moved to the United States. They scrimmed harder, practiced harder and pubbed harder than everyone else. Their work ethic was contagious — more and more teams in the region started to put in the work it took to be a top tier team. SK Gaming is at the top of the CSGO pyramid today, and they’ve elevated quite a few NA teams into international relevance with them.
The migrating EU squads will not stick around to scrim, or participate in AM tournaments since they’re actually located and playing from in Europe. They have little incentive to do so otherwise — the competition in their home region is better, the tournaments have more prize money and the pubs are more skilled.
There’s also the entire aspect of the sponsorship inequality between the regions. A lot of these migrating teams actually are salaried and live in team houses. They have the resources, tools and the time to focus exclusively on dota and get better at it. And they’ve worked for it too — countless small tournaments and LAN qualifiers later they have the privilege of a sponsorship. EU’s existing infrastructure of good, competitive teams created a positive feedback loop which in turn has boosted their scene’s sustainability.
On the other hand, Americas probably have 5–8 teams in total (including the directly invited two) who are salaried in a manner that makes DotA 2 their full time job. And the region does not have anywhere near the infrastructure currently to get noticed by sponsors or have regular Tier 2/Tier 3 tournaments with decent prizepools. Open qualifiers for the uninvited teams have become that much more important — they’re also trying to get noticed by potential sponsors while competing for a shot at the closed qualifier. They’re looking for an opportunity to fully devote their time and resources to the game and elevate themselves. The more teams get better locally, the more tournaments willing to host local tourneys since there will be more eyes on the matches. This will in turn bring bigger potential sponsors for the tournaments and larger prize totals for the players. The best case scenario is creating a positive feedback loop for the AM region mirroring the already existing one of EU and CN.
The migration unintentionally takes sponsor eyes off of AM teams when they get eliminated early on because simply, they aren’t good enough (yet) compared to the EU teams. The exposure that they would’ve gotten for being in the final four or making into the regionals isn’t there anymore. Maybe they would’ve upset Team NP in the regionals. Maybe they repeat the Cinderella story of Unknown.xiu of winning the OQ, winning the AM regionals and knocking out previous TI champs at a Major. Maybe they even finish top 6 at TI. That dream is all but dead for AM teams right now.
No tournament wants to have a bracket full of unknown players and teams. The feedback loop ends up being negative for America instead since teams cannot get eyes on them and generate enough interest or viewership for it to make economic sense.
A lot of these concerns come from a place of caution and fear, and it could very well be the case that the EU migration for open qualifiers ends up being a net positive after all. Maybe the AM teams get motivated by the extra competition and a positive feedback loop gets established. The EU region didn’t need holding hands and their scene is flourishing; maybe the AM region doesn’t need the special treatment. But chances are, this will not be the case and the worst case scenario needs to be weighed equally against the best case one when Valve makes their decision.
The Ugly:
There is a point where the wild wild west nature of Open Qualifiers starts to breakdown. A free-for-all concept sounds great in theory but there are some places where it bleeds into negligence. Whether this is an intended feature or a bug, we won’t know for sure until we hear straight from the frog’s mouth.
There are two bouts of qualifiers for each region, and teams are free to participate in both. But because of the time zone difference, EU teams can theoretically participate in an European qualifier earlier in the day (Start Time is 16:00 GMT), get knocked out, and sign up just in time for the AM qualifier which starts later in the day (23:00 GMT). So, this can allow for some teams to participate a maximum of four times instead of the intended two. While American teams can also participate in the EU qualifiers and sign up for the AM one after they get knocked out, there is little incentive to do so since they are much harder to advance in.
Best-of-one games often lend themselves to stronger teams sometimes getting cheesed, out-drafted or just out-played by a weaker opponent. Having more than two chances at qualification is a big deal given the volatile nature of the bracket.
Power Rangers Gaming, a semi-known EU team already did this for the second qualifiers. They got knocked out early in EU #2 and later joined AM #2 and advanced all the way to the semifinals. While this is clearly not against the rules, and they did nothing illegal, they did have an unfair advantage.
The FACEIT server selection rules also have room for exploitation. Here’s a twitter conversation outlining the issue at hand —
All four teams in the semi-finals were European for the second AM qualifier. So theoretically, they could just get rid of the ping handicap by agreeing to playing on EU servers, and it would be within the rules. While the entire #2 qualifier was played out on US servers, the rules still enable this egregious possibility.
The sad part about all of this is that South American teams already have bad ping to their own region (AM) servers, often worse than the team playing from the western portion of Europe. Their circumstances afford them the same handicap as EU squads without the ability to actually resolve it. They don’t have favorable servers for their own region.
While the Open Qualifiers have been a overwhelmingly positive addition for all four regions, Valve needs to step in and cement some important details for a smoother iteration at the next major. Whether they want to restrict OQs to just teams from that region or continue letting it be a free-for-all is up to them, but the obviously flawed aspects of the current system should be addressed. No region should have an unfair advantage over another, and especially not a clearly superior one in Europe.
The Regional AM Qualifiers begin today at 2 PM EST / 8 PM CEST. You can catch the action live at the BTS Boston Major Hub or MoonduckTV’s twitch channel. Will the American teams defend the region’s honor against the European Incursion?
